


and he won't tell you he loves you

by Verbyna



Series: all just trying to be holy [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Anti-Hero, Character Study, Daddy Issues, M/M, unstoppable force meets immovable object
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-08
Updated: 2012-06-08
Packaged: 2017-11-07 05:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/427665
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Verbyna/pseuds/Verbyna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is no throne for Loki, and Tony’s predictions are grim, but they are set in their paths and they will tear down a world to prove they weren’t wrong in their choices.</p>
            </blockquote>





	and he won't tell you he loves you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dear_monday](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dear_monday/gifts).



> The stories in this series can be read separately and out of order.
> 
> My thanks to dear_monday for the beta and to desert_neon for looking it over. The title is from a poem by Richard Siken.

The problem with pissing off a god is that it leaves someone with a pissed off god on their hands.

The problem with Loki and Tony Stark is that they’ll do it anyway. They are who they are.

*

It starts like this: Loki is taken in by Odin, and his whole life is a lie, bigger than all the lies he could ever spill like oil over rough edges to make his progress smoother. He _is_ a lie. He is the All-Father’s best and darkest and best-intentioned trick, and he grows into the Trickster, slippery even when he wishes he wasn’t. He grows out of wishing, but the wanting stays and fuels his magic. He is hungry for everything, and twice as controlled as he’s hungry, layer upon layer of Son and Brother over the thing that is Loki, but not nearly enough to contain it.

Or maybe it starts like this: as the Odinsleep approaches again and Loki’s mind grows sharper in new and desperate shapes, a boy is born on Earth. His father is a tangle of synapses, a pair of sharp eyes that pin Tony in place, a pair of warm hands made for the minutiae of perfect machines. Tony grows up straining, speaking the language of instruments and tools: usefulness, empty bodies, a spark of genius that flares and singes him and his. He measures his childhood in breakthroughs, borne by his name like a cresting wave of money that just won’t crash.

There are no rocks to break against as the Odinsleep draws near. There is no one left to impress but their whole worlds when their fathers are gone and their long shadows linger.

*

The problem with being a son is that there are those who think they would be better suited to being heirs.

Abstinence only stretches so far when there’s so much for the taking. Loki takes a realm. Tony takes an empire. They are made of good intentions, but other than their fathers, who can match them? Who can surpass them?

There’s nothing more dangerous than growing up with the expectation of power and getting it before one’s quite ready, knowing that the potential is there to fill the vacuum.

Well, no. That’s a lie, Tony Stark thinks, as his godfather translates him to the board of directors. There’s something worse. There’s the drudgery of waiting for the world to catch up.

Why not change it? Why not, when it’s so clear that no one else can do so much—all those ideas put to use, the peace that only comes from pushing a brain that can’t be pushed by anything but itself? It’s not ambition, it’s boredom, tinged with despair; the impulse that drives people to jump off cliffs if they’re stuck on the edge for too long. Anything is better than letting a mind like that stew in its own electric charge.

*

Loki has a heart. He can feel it freezing with the rest of him.

Tony’s is a fabulous muscle, even when it takes so much to keep it pumping.

The ice doesn’t crack and the muscle doesn’t tear, but betrayal does strange things to both of them. They hurt, real pain in their chests, and they know then that they took too much for granted. That they’d been looking at themselves all wrong, twisted in the wrong-size mirrors.

They take those hearts, their bodies and the things that fuel them, and become the weapons they used to build.

Tony and Loki become themselves, products, yet nothing at all like they were supposed to turn out. That’s fine. They’re ready. They are turning against the long shadows and the old pain, baring their teeth in smiles, or something like it.

*

The problem with pissing off the gods is that, at the end of the day, someone is left with a pissed off god to deal with.

Odin is terrible in his wrath. Loki is no less terrifying. Tony fails to learn humility, because there are things out there that even he couldn’t have predicted, but he can fight. He can. He will.

When Tony and Loki crash against each other, they’ve already bargained away their freedom. Tony is an Avenger; he can fly, but not too far. He doesn’t own the sky. Loki is at the helm of an army that will tear him apart is he fails. What else is left but victory? When have they ever won before?

There is no throne for Loki, and Tony’s predictions are grim, but they are set in their paths and they will tear down a world to prove they weren’t wrong in their choices.

*

“Big man in a suit of armor. Take that away and what are you?”

See, Tony’s thought about this a lot; the answer just rolls off his tongue. Thor laughs, and Tony’s glad that Loki isn’t there to see it. Tony calls himself a genius first, because that’s the only thing he can’t escape. The rest, he’s built himself, like the suit of armor and the arc reactor. He built power on power, stacked it high, but it all exists to protect his mind.

(No one asks him about his heart. It’s clearly still beating. Pepper comes closest to cracking it open, but he gave her all he could and took too much already.)

He’s not a cruel man. He just knows himself too well, knows he worries people. He can’t tell apart the body and the machine anymore, where the world ends and his creations begin.

Tony gave Pepper his company. He can’t put the world on her shoulders as well.

*

It ends like this: Loki loses, and he’s safe from his bargain with the Chitauri. Imprisoned, he has time to think about Tony Stark. He watches him for months before he reveals himself, unsure of his welcome, but safe in the knowledge (how fitting) that he’s as unstoppable as Tony is immovable.

Or perhaps it ends when Tony watches the god of lies coalesce in front of his eyes, and realizes it too.

They don’t need understanding, but they’ll take it if it presents itself. Slowly, secretly, they narrow their eyes and smile.

Stalemate.


End file.
